Over time, whether it’s a year, two years, ten years, or more, there’s so much that changes. Technology, people, and businesses, are just some of what really changes. The response to the changes can be good to where people are thriving or it can be the complete opposite. Once changes begin to happen the next logical questions that people begin to ask are “What are we going to do next?” and “How do we incorporate these changes into our lives, the company, etc.?”
Content strategy cannot escape all the changes that happen every second. In fact, in the past 15 years there has been a lot changes to the way content strategies has to be presented. Society’s attention span has decreased exponentially due to the rapidly advancing technology and distractions. What people are willing to take the time and actually read a book, document, or even an article comes down to how many words there are, whether or not there are images, any bullet points, and an overall short amount of time it will take to read the entire piece.
For the most part, unless someone is very interested in the topic the piece is about then they will spend a longer time reading it and even that isn’t always true. Jakob Nielsen states, “If you want many readers, focus on short and scannable content…But the very best content strategy is one that mirrors the users’ mixed diet. There’s no reason to limit yourself to only one content type.” Fifteen years ago, the idea of mixing the content type may have been rare or not used for the most part. However, now it’s basically what people look for in a content strategy. Reading a strategy for any type of content can be a long process, but by including different kinds of content whether it’s a video link, PDF of a paper or other content, or even images can get more people to read all of it and to fully appreciate it. Daniel Weisbeck states, “The contextual “how” we communicate and what form that experience takes has become as important as the actual content being delivered. To that effect, context is everything. Context is king.” Once someone or a company won’t agree to adapt and change with the ever growing technology they will eventually become obsolete and that’s not what people want. In fact, Mia Pernar states, “So content must first be relevant, but also unique to the devices being used to view the content.” It’s great and all that content can be viewed on a computer no problem, but once the viewer wants to view the content strategy or the content itself on their phone they have to be able to without anything funky happen. With that being said over the past 15 years, technology has been changing and as content creators so do we.
Throughout 15 years a lot can happen and a lot can change. Technology allows for companies and people to communicate easier, but it also brings along some challenges that they have to adapt to. As people are adapting to the ever changing world, they are picking and choosing what they read based on the length and content in them. Overall, content strategies grow and change the way they are shown to others and created from the start.
Resources:
- Pernar, Mia. “How Digital Technologies Will Affect Your Content Strategy.” Business 2 Community, 11 Sept. 2014, http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/digital-technologies-will-affect-content-strategy-01000145.
- Nielsen, Jakob. “Long vs. Short Articles as Content Strategy.” Nielsen Norman Group, 11 Nov. 2007, http://www.nngroup.com/articles/content-strategy-long-vs-short/?lm=content-strategy&pt=course.
- Weisbeck, Daniel. “Context Is King – Long Live the King.” Wired, Conde Nast, 7 Aug. 2015, http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/01/context-king-long-live-king/.
Image:
- Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. “Technology Adoption.” Our World in Data, 2 Oct. 2017, ourworldindata.org/technology-adoption#mobile-phone-adoption.
Michaela Ganezer 